Women in Management Worldwide

Signs of progress

Ronald J. Burke, Astrid M. Richardsen

• Publisher: Gower
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781134775552
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Women in Business
• Index: Business

Organizations today are facing unprecedented challenges, including an ageing workforce, potential talent shortages, an increasingly competitive international environment and the need to utilize the talents of the best qualified people, regardless of gender. More women than men, in many cases, are graduating from universities and gaining the requisite experience to qualify for advancement to higher levels of management.

In this expanded and revised third edition, Professors Burke and Richardsen, together with a list of international contributors, address women's progression in the workforce and into the upper echelons of management. They cover a range of professions and a geographically dispersed territory, thereby advancing the understanding of women in management within a traditional context, and making a substantial contribution to the literature for both an academic and practitioner audience. The broader regional perspective offers a comprehensive overview of the challenges and opportunities facing women in the workplace, and promotes the ongoing analysis of the interface between women's career aspirations and societal and organizational norms, assumptions and values. Following the same format as the previous edition, the country by country analysis allows for the data between countries and regions to be compared, for the differences to be addressed and a more holistic picture of the situation in a given country to be assessed.

Women in Management Worldwide will appeal to researchers, policy-makers in a range of countries interested in workforce issues, talent management and gender equality, as well as consultants working with international organizations on HRM and organizational effectiveness challenges.

1
Women in management worldwide

Progressing slowly¹

Ronald J. Burke

This volume, Women in Management Worldwide: Signs of Progress (2016), is the third edition in our Women in Management Worldwide series. Marilyn Davidson and I concluded in 2003 that it would be useful to take stock of the status of women in the workforce, in management and professional jobs, country legislation supporting women’s advancement, and company initiatives supporting the development of qualified women. We thought it made sense to examine this in a sample of countries, both developed and developing. We asked authors from 21 countries to indicate the status of women in their workforces, in the professions, and in management, by considering common areas such as women in education, women in entrepreneurship, and country legislation related to women and work. We hoped this would provide benchmark data to permit analyses of changes over time and allow comparisons across countries. These data might also shed light on ways country cultural values shape women’s work experiences and career progress.

We invited contributors from countries in all major regions of the world. Some of our initial contributors declined our invitation to take part as their countries did not systematically collect information of the kind we desired. Contributors from 20 countries did take part, resulting in the first edition.

Women in Management Worldwide: Facts, Figures, and Analysis (2004)

Countries were allocated to seven regions as follows: European Union countries: Greece, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the United Kingdom (UK); other European countries: Norway, Poland and Russia; North and Central America: Canada, Mexico, and the United States; Australasia: New Zealand and Australia; Asia: China, Malaysia, Turkey and Israel; South America: Argentina; and Africa: South Africa.

Although this is getting ahead of our journey, there are likely several countries, as this is being written in late 2015, where the collection of such data is either given a very low priority or is non-existent. Ongoing wars, sectarian conflicts, and terrorist activities make women in the workforce and in management concerns of low priority or may even contribute to women’s plight (e.g. Afghanistan, Yemen, Nigeria, Palestine, and Somalia).

Our objectives for this volume were:

• to understand more about the status of women at work and women in the professions and management in a number of countries throughout the world;
• to begin a process for collecting common information in a variety of countries to capture both trends over time and support comparisons across countries;
• to collect baseline information to provide background data, indicating the current status of women in management;
• to facilitate more cross-cultural research in this area;
• to encourage the exchange of research findings as well as company “best practice” efforts;
• to shed some light on the roles of country culture on women’s career advancement and international career assignments;
• to encourage more research in these areas, and more collaborative research across countries. Sadly research on gender issues in organizations is still seen as a marginal research activity by most academics;
• to raise issues of utilizing the best talent available for organizational success.

Although the availability of relevant information varied from country to country, authors noted barriers experienced by women in management, supportive country legislation, and suggest ions for reducing these obstacles. More women were getting education, more women were in the workforce, there were increases in the numbers of women in management, more women were becoming entrepreneurs, and more countries had enacted legislation (e.g. pay and gender equality, maternity and paternity leaves). But improvements were small.

Women in Management Worldwide: Progress and Prospects (2011)

Six years later Marilyn and I decided, in 2009, to update the 2004 volume, asking some of the original contributors to update their earlier chapters to identify possible/anticipated changes that took place in the intervening six or seven years. We also invited contributors from three new countries, replacing four countries from the 2004 volume. Our objectives for the second edition were similar to those mentioned above. Sixteen countries appeared in both editions, eight countries appeared once, four in each of the two editions. Chapters reported on labor force characteristics, women pursuing education, women in management, women entrepreneurs, country legislation, organizational initiatives, and their thoughts on the future.

Nineteen countries were allocated to the same seven regions as follows: European Union countries: France, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the UK; other European countries: Norway and Russia; North and Central America: Canada, Mexico and the USA; Australasia: Australia and New Zealand; Asia: China, Israel, Lebanon, and Turkey; South America: Argentina; and Africa: South Africa. Again, modest gains were present in most countries in some of these areas. It should be noted that countries were selected because there were individuals in these countries researching and writing about women in management and these countries were most likely to be making efforts to support professional and managerial women. As in the first edition, there was considerable variation among countries in these indicators. But there were positive features in the 20 countries, along with some worrisome aspects. The rate of progress and change was again slow; women continued to face bias and barriers, with some indictors remaining essentially unchanged. Achieving gender balance and gender equality is very difficult. If gender balance and gender equality were easy, they would have happened already.

Women in Management Worldwide: Signs of Progress (2016)

Building on the success of these two volumes, Gower, our publisher wondered if we would produce a third edition. Both Marilyn and I had retired, becoming Emeritus Professors. Lyn decided not to take part as she was having lots of fun doing other things (not that working together wasn’t fun – just less fun). I agreed to consider this offer. When my friend and colleague, Astrid Richardsen, agreed to collaborate and co-edit this collection, we decided to move forward.

Our objectives for this updated collection were generally similar to those that guided our first volume (see above). In addition we invited some of our original contributors as well as adding some new countries and authors. This edition includes 20 countries, with a new region, the Middle East, added to accommodate our country chapters. Countries came from all regions of the world and included both developed and developing nations. Five new countries were added for the first time: Chile, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and India. Most of these first-time countries have received little previous research attention in these areas. Thirteen countries have appeared in each of the three volumes, seven countries appeared once, three in the first edition, four in the second, and five in the third. As in our earlier collections, we asked contributors to address some areas in common (e.g. women in education, women in the workforce, country legislation, etc.).

Several of our objectives for this series were being realized, though we do not claim credit for this. Research on women in management is increasing in general, including in many regions and countries that have historically been relatively ignored. Several other research and consulting organizations (McKinsey, Catalyst, Dell, Twenty First, International Labour Organization) have collected data in several countries simultaneously for comparison purposes. More research has included measures of cultural norms and values to help position and explain findings.

Why advancing women matters

Schwartz (1992) suggests that supporting the advancement of qualified women means that organizations have the best people in leadership roles, giving senior-level men the experience of working with capable senior-level women. It also indicates to women employees, clients, and customers that women can succeed, serve as role models for junior-level women, and given the “war for talent” supporting the advancement of qualified women offers a competitive advantage. Most importantly, women can utilize their talents and develop their full potential. Shriver (2009) notes that the increasing numbers of women in the workforce will change women, men, families, organizations, and societies. Women have now become an important economic force (Silverstein and Sayre, 2009a, 2009b).

Tarr-Whelan (2009) identifies several benefits to organizations from having more women in senior-level jobs: better performance, more risk aversion, less destructive competition, contributions to individuals and societal health in terms of better integration of work and family and a higher quality of life for both men and women, higher levels of individual and corporate responsibility, and better management practices such as teamwork and participative decision making more in touch with twenty-first-century values. There is strength in the differences women and men bring with them (Annis and Gray, 2013).

Women are entering the workforce in increasing numbers in almost every country. The rate of women’s advancement into higher levels of management continues to be slow, with some writers concluding that improvements have stopped. Women continued to gain the necessary education and experience but fell short in their advancement. Women were still paid less than men, still faced bias and discrimination, and shouldered more responsibility for home and family functioning than did men.

Advancing women – not only the right and the smart thing for organizations and societies to undertake

Gonzales et al. (2015), in a Staff Discussion Note prepared by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), examined the role of gender-based legal restrictions on female labor force participation rates. Obstacles such as restrictions on women’s rights to inheritance and property, and impediments to opening a bank account, or choosing professions reduce women’s labor force participation rates. Wright (2015), reviewing the recent 2015 IMF report, notes that countries that make it difficult for women to enter the workforce incur lost productivity and poorer economic performance. Countries that close this gender gap can increase gross domestic product (GDP) by 15 to 35 percent. The IMF study found that almost 90 percent of countries had at least one legal restriction with 28 countries having ten or more legal restrictions (e.g. limits on women’s property rights, laws prohibiting women from pursuing particular occupations, laws allowing husbands to prevent their wives from working) (Wright, 2015). Productivity losses ranged from 15 percent in Greece, Italy, and Japan to 35 percent in Iran, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (Wright, 2015).

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (2014) observed that G20 countries would experience economic growth and increased citizen welfare by increasing labor force participation of females. While these gender differences are slowing shrinking, barriers to women’s participation rates still remain.

Two studies undertaken by international consulting firms showed that having more women in the workforce and more women on corporate boards of directors have large economic benefits. McKinsey (2015a) reported that if every country matched the progress toward gender equality of its nearest neighbor, the power of parity, it would add US$12 trillion to global GDP by 2025. A study of the financial performance of organizations in the US, UK, and India undertaken by Grant Thornton (2015) reported that boards having female directors outpace the male-only boards by $655 billion.

Increasing the participation rates of women in the workforce is important to address a shrinking workforce due to both an aging population and lower fertility rates, as well as the need to utilize the best talent available. In addition to increasing women’s labor force participati...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Women in management worldwide: progressing slowly
• PART I Women in management: European Union countries
• PART II Women in management: other European countries
• PART III Women in management: North and Central America
• PART IV Women in management: Australasia
• PART V Women in management: Asia
• PART VI Women in management: South America
• PART VII Women in management: Middle East
• PART VIII Women in management: Africa
• Index